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Archive for category Threat Watch
Obama’s Afghanistan Plan and the Realities of Withdrawal
Posted by Brian in News, Threat Watch on 23/Jun/2011 13:16
Obama’s Afghanistan Plan and the Realities of Withdrawal is republished with permission of STRATFOR.
By Nathan Hughes
U.S. President Barack Obama announced June 22 that the long process of drawing down forces in Afghanistan would begin on schedule in July. Though the 
initial phase of the drawdown appears limited, minimizing the tactical and operational impact on the ground in the immediate future, the United States and its allies are now beginning the inevitable process of removing their forces from Afghanistan. This will entail the risk of greater Taliban battlefield successes.
The Logistical Challenge
Afghanistan, a landlocked country in the heart of Central Asia, is one of the most isolated places on Earth. This isolation has posed huge logistical challenges for the United States. Hundreds of shipping containers and fuel trucks must enter the country every day from Pakistan and from the north to sustain the nearly 150,000 U.S. and allied forces stationed in Afghanistan, about half the total number of Afghan security forces. Supplying a single gallon of gasoline in Afghanistan reportedly costs the U.S. military an average of $400, while sustaining a single U.S. soldier runs around $1 million a year (by contrast, sustaining an Afghan soldier costs about $12,000 a year). Read the rest of this entry »
Obama’s Reasoning On Libya Criticized
Posted by Gary in Law, News, Threat Watch, Warriors on 21/Jun/2011 09:14
Washington Post -David A. Fahrenthold
The White House has officially declared that what’s happening in Libya is not “hostilities.” But at the Pentagon, officials have decided it’s unsafe enough there to give troops extra pay for serving in “imminent danger.”
Taliban Uses Children In Suicide Attacks
Posted by Gary in News, Threat Watch on 21/Jun/2011 08:39
Use Of Children In Suicide Attacks Part Of ‘Ruthless’ Escalation For Taliban
NationalJournal.com
The Taliban have begun using child suicide bombers in eastern Afghanistan, underscoring the increasingly brutal nature of the fighting in a volatile region that is emerging as the central front of the U.S.-led war.
Gates says NATO alliance in danger of breaking
Posted by Gary in News, Threat Watch on 15/Jun/2011 10:19
From: Kansascity.com
Robert Gates calls it “aging out.” He’s not referring to his imminent retirement as defense secretary. He’s talking about a generational expiration date on the American embrace of Europe as a pillar of U.S. defense strategy.
Agent: I was ordered to let U.S. guns into Mexico
Posted by Jack Sinclair in Law, News, Threat Watch on 14/Jun/2011 20:25
(CBS News)
WASHINGTON – Federal agent John Dodson says what he was asked to do was beyond belief.
He was intentionally letting guns go to Mexico?
“Yes ma’am,” Dodson told CBS News. “The agency was.”
An Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms senior agent assigned to the Phoenix office in 2010, Dodson’s job is to stop gun trafficking across the border. Instead, he says he was ordered to sit by and watch it happen.
Investigators call the tactic letting guns “walk.” In this case, walking into the hands of criminals who would use them in Mexico and the United States.
Documents show the inevitable result: The guns that ATF let go began showing up at crime scenes in Mexico. And as ATF stood by watching thousands of weapons hit the streets… the Fast and Furious group supervisor noted the escalating Mexican violence.
One e-mail noted, “958 killed in March 2010 … most violent month since 2005.” The same e-mail notes: “Our subjects purchased 359 firearms during March alone,” including “numerous Barrett .50 caliber rifles.”
Dodson feels that ATF was partly to blame for the escalating violence in Mexico and on the border. “I even asked them if they could see the correlation between the two,” he said. “The more our guys buy, the more violence we’re having down there.”
Video here:
How is it the weapon industry’s fault? Do they blame the auto industry for all of the car accidents in Mexico?
Raw Intelligence Report: Conditions in Baghdad
Posted by Brian in News, Threat Watch on 14/Jun/2011 13:28
This is a report from Stratfor Global Intelligence
June 13, 2011
Editor’s Note: What follows is raw insight from a STRATFOR source in Baghdad, Iraq. The following does not reflect STRATFOR’s view, but provides a perspective on the situation in Baghdad.
After the fall of Baghdad in 2003, the city was a nice place despite the lack of law enforcement and government. By February 2004, most businesses were operating, people were happy and stores were open until midnight. There was no shortage of fuel, and electricity was more reliable. The city was very clean, and the crime rate was low. There was also no fear of kidnapping or car bombs. It was a functioning city with law, even without law enforcement. There was even a lion in the Baghdad Zoo, though I heard it later died.
On March 2, 2004, explosions shook the Shiite Kazimiyah district, killing tens and wounding hundreds. These explosions were the start of more attacks and car bombings between the Shia and Sunnis that increased in later years. In 2003 and 2004, Baghdad was a city where I envisioned living permanently one day. That is not the case now.
The roads are in very poor condition, with lots of garbage everywhere — some of it dating back to 2003. Many streets are blocked with concrete walls. There are many checkpoints inside the city manned by soldiers and police, but they did not seem to be well trained or prepared for potential threats. I hardly saw them checking cars or asking people for identification. We drove 400 kilometers (250 miles) and encountered more than 26 checkpoints; none of them stopped us to ask for identification. The soldiers and police at the checkpoints do not seem to be loyal to the Iraqi state but are there to get their salaries and make a living. The taxi driver told me that since the government does not enforce the law, the soldiers do not want to ask for identification and hold people accountable because they fear reprisals later. Therefore, they let everyone go and avoid problems. Read the rest of this entry »
Citi Credit Card Information Stolen
Posted by Brian in Comms, News, Threat Watch on 10/Jun/2011 13:41
Information on 200,000 Citi Credit Card Customers was stolen in an attack on their network.
Citi said no birth dates, Social Security numbers or card security codes were accessed by the hackers last month. They got away with account numbers and e-mail addresses. The financial institution said it would provide new cards to affected customers.
From Wired’s Threat Level
U.S. Intensifying Secret Campaign of Yemen Airstrikes
Posted by Jack Sinclair in News, Threat Watch on 9/Jun/2011 20:31
WASHINGTON — “The Obama administration has intensified the American covert war in Yemen, exploiting a growing power vacuum in the country to strike at militant suspects with armed drones and fighter jets, according to American officials.
The acceleration of the American campaign in recent weeks comes amid a violent conflict in Yemen that has left the government in Sana, a United States ally, struggling to cling to power.
Yemeni troops that had been battling militants linked to Al Qaeda in the south have been pulled back to the capital, and American officials see the strikes as one of the few options to keep the militants from consolidating power.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/09/world/middleeast/09intel.html?partner=rss&emc=rss
The Invisible Enemy
Posted by Jack Sinclair in Medic, News, Threat Watch on 9/Jun/2011 20:23
“Behind the scenes, the spread of a pathogen that targets wounded GIs has triggered broad reforms in both combat medical care and the Pentagon’s networks for tracking bacterial threats within the ranks.
Interviews with current and former military physicians, recent articles in medical journals, and internal reports reveal that the Department of Defense has been waging a secret war within the larger mission in Iraq and Afghanistan – a war against antibiotic-resistant pathogens.”
NDM-1 in a U.S. Military Hospital in Afghanistan
Posted by Jack Sinclair in Medic, News, Threat Watch on 9/Jun/2011 20:18
By Maryn McKenna
… Deep in the back of the weekly bulletin of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, there is a note that NDM-1, the “Indian supergene,†has been isolated from a patient in a U.S. military field hospital in Bagram, Afghanistan.
It’s been a few months since NDM-1 was in the news, so let’s recap. The acronym (for “New Delhi metallo-beta-lactamase 1″) indicates an enzyme that allows common gut bacteria to denature almost all the drugs that can be used against them, leaving two or three that are inefficient or toxic.
… You don’t even have to imagine what comes next, because we already know: Multidrug-resistant Acinetobacter baumanii has been spreading through the military hospital system for almost a decade, with grave consequences for injured military personnel.
Acintobacter slipped by the military medical system before they noticed, and became established in military hospitals before infection-control efforts were prepared to counter it.
As U.S. pullout nears, Taliban attacks undermine confidence
Posted by Jack Sinclair in News, Threat Watch on 9/Jun/2011 20:14
By HASHIM SHUKOOR
McClatchy Newspapers
KABUL, Afghanistan — A 6-week-old Taliban offensive that has struck some of the most peaceful parts of Afghanistan and killed police commanders and senior officials is undermining confidence in the Afghan army and police just as the Obama administration considers how quickly it should begin drawing down U.S. forces here.
The campaign, whose targets have included high-level meetings of government officials and supposedly secure facilities in Kabul, including the Defense Ministry, has left many Afghans uncertain of the competency of the security forces and their loyalty.
Particularly unsettling for many was the attack April 18 in which a Taliban sympathizer wearing a military uniform entered the heavily defended Defense Ministry building and opened fire.”
“A suicide attacker getting into the Defense Ministry shows the government’s weakness,” said Abdul Samad, a 25-year-old mechanic, when he was asked about his sense of Afghanistan’s security situation. Such an attack “makes people lose trust in the security forces.”
http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/06/09/2259271/as-us-pullout-nears-taliban-bombs.html#ixzz1Opb045Do
Pakistani army says it doesn’t want U.S. aid
Posted by Jack Sinclair in News, Threat Watch on 9/Jun/2011 20:09
ISLAMABAD — “Pakistan’s army lashed out Thursday at its critics at home as well as in the United States in an angry statement that underscored just how deep a crisis the country’s armed forces are suffering.
The statement rejected all American financial aid for the military, saying the money should go instead to the government to be spent on “the common man.” It warned that it intended to “put an end” to domestic criticism of its actions.
It also tried to distance the military from the United States, saying that it had stopped U.S. training of the country’s border guards and ordered the U.S. to “drastically” reduce the number of its troops in Pakistan.”
http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/06/09/2259350/angry-pakistani-army-says-it-doesnt.html#ixzz1OpaSAKb6
Department of Education SWAT Raid
Posted by Brian in Law, News, Threat Watch on 8/Jun/2011 13:50
This news story comes from The Daily Mail Online, a British publication:
Mr Wright was later told by Stockton police that the order to send in the SWAT team came from The U.S. Department of Education who were looking for his estranged wife to collect defaulted loan payments.
He says he was then detained for six hours while officers looked for his wife – who no longer lives at the house.
More from Reason.com
It appears that every department of the federal government will eventually be militarized. This situation is the exact reason the second amendment was added to the Constitution.
Soldier from 4 SCOTS killed in Afghanistan
Posted by Gary in News, Threat Watch, Warriors on 4/Jun/2011 15:17
From: MOD
It is with sadness that the Ministry of Defence must announce that a soldier from The Highlanders, 4th Battalion The Royal Regiment of Scotland (4 SCOTS), was killed in Afghanistan, yesterday, Friday 3 June 2011.
Ministry of Defence
The soldier was fatally wounded by insurgent gunfire while on a security patrol in the Lashkar Gah District of Helmand Province.
Spokesman for Task Force Helmand, Lieutenant Colonel Tim Purbrick, said:
“It is with much regret that I have to inform you of the death of a soldier from The Highlanders, 4th Battalion The Royal Regiment of Scotland, in the Pupalzay area of the Lashkar Gah District of Helmand Province.
“The soldier was on a partnered patrol with the Afghan National Police to reassure the local population when his unit came under attack by rifle, Rocket Propelled Grenade and indirect fire from insurgents, during which he was fatally wounded. Our thoughts and prayers are with his family and friends.”
Next of kin have been informed and have requested a period of grace before further information is released.
Protective Intelligence Lessons from an Ambush in Mexico
Posted by Brian in News, Threat Watch on 3/Jun/2011 16:56
Protective Intelligence Lessons from an Ambush in Mexico is republished with permission of STRATFOR.
By Scott Stewart
On the afternoon of May 27, a convoy transporting a large number of heavily armed gunmen was ambushed on Mexican Highway 15 near Ruiz, Nayarit state, on Mexico’s Pacific coast. When authorities responded they found 28 dead gunmen and another four wounded, one of whom would later die, bringing the death toll to 29. This is a significant number of dead for one incident, even in Mexico.
According to Nayarit state Attorney General Oscar Herrera Lopez, the gunmen ambushed were members of Los Zetas, a Mexican drug cartel. Herrera noted that most of the victims were from Mexico’s Gulf coast, but there were also some Guatemalans mixed into the group, including one of the wounded survivors. While Los Zetas are predominately based on the Gulf coast, they have been working to provide armed support to allied groups, such as the Cartel Pacifico Sur (CPS), a faction of the former Beltran Leyva Organization that is currently battling the Sinaloa Federation and other cartels for control of the lucrative smuggling routes along the Pacific coast. In much the same way, Sinaloa is working with the Gulf cartel to go after Los Zetas in Mexico’s northeast while protecting and expanding its home turf. If the victims in the Ruiz ambush were Zetas, then the Sinaloa Federation was likely the organization that planned and executed this very successful ambush.
